Blog

Our team had the opportunity to build an accessibility ramp for a local Aurora family. Partnering with the Home Builders Foundation, we’re grateful for the chance to restore some freedom and accessibility for this family.

At Parkwood, we’re dedicated to helping you build not just a home, but a house that feels like your home. That’s why we work hard to give you the freedom to design your home for the way you live. Here’s how we helped Jackie build hers.

Each year, the Home Builders Foundation hosts their Blitz Build event, where volunteer teams help build wheelchair ramps for residents around Denver. This year was our first time participating, and we had the wonderful opportunity to build a ramp for Ahmed, an eleven year-old boy in Aurora suffering from muscular dystrophy.

It was 2013 when the idea for Boston Street Gardens first came to mind. Inspired by their separate trips to Old Louisville, Heidi Majerik, who worked for Forest City at the time, and Parkwood’s Steve Wilcox and Jack Fleury brought the historic neighborhood’s timeless charm from Kentucky to Colorado. In part three of our series on Boston Street Gardens, we look at how this little sub-neighborhood turned into reality.

Finding the right home is more than just having a nice house to live in. It’s also about being part of a larger community. For Part Two of our series on Boston Street Gardens, we met with Parkwood homeowners Dave and Nichelle to find out how life feels different in this neighborhood and, of course, get a glimpse inside their stylish, cozy Newbury townhome.

From rendering to reality, Boston Street Gardens has been nearly 3 years in the making. With a playful bocce ball court, charming wrought-iron benches, and a narrow street running through it, it was designed to bring neighbors together.

As you pull off Urbana Pike onto Templeton Drive and look up at the Worthington Square collection of townhomes, it is impossible to miss the gorgeous, dark-blue townhome right next to Parkwood’s model. Nick and Kim moved into the Villages of Urbana in the autumn of 2017. As first-time homebuyers, they weren’t positive what they were looking for, but they never looked back after visiting Parkwood. We sat down with them to talk about their search for a new home and the homebuilding process and loved to hear what they had to say.

What was the reason you decided to move?

“Well my husband was active duty for a while and we were down in Louisiana. We ended up coming back to Maryland, found jobs in Montgomery County, stayed in an apartment for a while and decided we just didn’t like the area very much. I'm from Hagerstown but Frederick is just where we knew we wanted to be. So we actually went around Frederick looked at a whole bunch of houses and town houses and actually stumbled across Parkwood, to be honest, and fell in love when we went into the model. That was it. We signed papers a couple weeks later.”

What made you choose Parkwood?

“We wanted to be close to 270 so we can go back-and-forth to work, but also, just in the house, the open floor plan, being able to entertain guests and be in the kitchen and cook. Both of our families kind of revolve around group gatherings. Being with the family and cooking together. Being able to socialize was a big thing for both of us. This is our first house. We’ve never owned a house before. So he knew he wanted some type of man cave area, but the open floor plan is really all I wanted.”

What in particular about the Villages of Urbana drew you?

“It just feels like it's a community. Like a real community. You see people walking their dogs, you see people playing with their kids, there's parks, there's life here. You know, where we have lived there's nothing like that. Even in the military community we didn’t see as much community as there is here. It gives us that close feel where we can walk anywhere. It’s all within that close-knit community, where you don't have to drive.“

What can you tell us about your build process?

“It was so easy. We had no idea what we were doing. No clue, but we were walked through every single step. Every meeting was put around our schedule. “Meet with us when you can. We’re gonna talk about this.” Emails always answered. And it was just two people that you talked to. I was fully expecting to have a multitude of different people, and it was going to be a mess, but Costel [Parkwood’s construction manager] made it so easy. We know people that have worked with all these other builders, and we have not had any of the problems other people have. So the quality of Parkwood is very obvious, and we’ve told Costel this over and over again, but it just makes it that much easier.”